‘Travel Will Prove You Wrong’: Yuna

Whether you’re stepping onto a new continent or diving to the bottom of the ocean, travel has the power to change the way you think, act, live. For the singer-songwriter Yuna, it was a study abroad trip as a teen that made her realize it's who you meet along the way that makes a journey worthwhile.

I was 16 when I left my parents and home in Malaysia for a student exchange program in Italy. I was used to everything being tropical, and I was sent to Turin in the winter. It was so cold: It seemed like everything was ice and, in the beginning, I hated it.

I didn't speak a word of Italian and no one around me spoke English so I felt so lost in translation. But then, at my Italian school, I started to make friends, communicating as best as we could before I could speak Italian. I joined the soccer team (we played on an ice field) to meet even more people, and when I realized it was the people who made me love the place, everything about the way I traveled shifted.

Those three months in Italy changed my life. It helped me become Yuna, the woman I am today. It made me realize that the friends you meet when traveling are often the most incredible part.

When I’m on tour, I try to keep that same mindset. I have such limited time in a city that I try to be really focused about how I'm spending my time during my day off. I talk to my fans to get that inspiration and to know what to do, and to go places where locals go. A lot of the people I try and connect with are local Malaysian, often students, who will take me around and show me their city. Mostly, we meet up to eat. We're such a small country and we grew up with a different family value system, where we feel like we know everyone—even strangers. We have a connection and you try to embrace everyone as your family.

On my honeymoon in Tulum, Mexico.

Courtesy Yuna

I remember being so skeptical about moving to L.A. and to the U.S., thinking Islamophobia was such an ingrained part of the culture here. Was I going to be in danger? But when I arrived, I realized, no, people are friendly and warm. Yes, that problem still exists, but more people are supportive of me and my music career here than are not.

And that’s the point: Travel will prove you wrong. It will prove the things you learned and ideas you trusted from the news, or neighbors, or strangers about a place wrong, because you'll be experiencing it for yourself. You get to form your own ideas of a place or a people, and I'm a little addicted to that feeling. Because you'll learn things that you never would have known about yourself—and about others—unless you travel. —As told to Meredith Carey.